Taste of Peoria

Jeff and I joined thousands of Peorians tonight at the Riverfront to enjoy the 27th annual Taste of Peoria. About 40-50 vendors from restaurants throughout the city offered some of their most popular dishes to a crowd of 20,000. The lines were crazy long...I waited at least 10-15 minutes to purchase a skewer of drunken steak from Johnny's Steakhouse. But it was grilled to medium rare perfection and absolutely delish! We spent a whopping $19 on admission and food and didn't get much in return but it was a festive place to be.

Jeff's favorite dish was "spicy chicken" from Than Lin, a thai restaurant located on Main Street in Peoria--I highly recommend this place. The food is pretty cheap, almost everything on the menu is healthy, and it's very tasty. Every dish was sold for either $1,$2, or $3 in appetizer sizes. Our salmon burger was a joke but everything else was wonderful. Now I'm trying to get Jeff to take me to Johnny's Steakhouse for a real meal! That sampler was not enough.

Pool party

This weekend we picked up a pool 12 feet in diameter and about 2 feet deep and plopped it in our backyard...I found it posted online from a woman wanting to get rid of it for free since it takes forever to inflate and it's hard to find the hole that's releasing air in order to patch it. Anyway, despite the downsides (it takes hours to fill and it's not as deep as Laney would like), the kids are in love with the pool. It creates a mess of water in the house when they come in and it's exhausting to fill it up but it keeps them happily occupied in our backyard for hours while I'm working and getting dinner ready. I wish we had a swing set or something fun they could play in with the neighborhood kids...I'm hoping to purchase one as soon as we move--if we ever do move!

Yea for Girls!

THANK HEAVEN
FOR LITTLE GIRLS...
FOR LITTLE GIRLS
GET BIGGER EVERY DAY...


THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS...
THEY GROW UP IN THE
MOST DELIGHTFUL WAY


THOSE LITTLE EYES
SO HELPLESS AND APPEALING
ONE DAY WILL FLASH AND
SEND YOU THROUGH THE CEILIN'



THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS,
THANK HEAVEN FOR THEM ALL
NO MATTER WHERE NO MATTER WHO
FOR WITHOUT THEM, WHAT WOULD LITTLE BOYS DO?

THANK HEAVEN...THANK HEAVEN...
THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS!

A Hairy Mess

This is not a bird's nest--it's a picture of about 3 pounds of hair I removed from my head today. Let me explain:
This morning I woke up with a bona fide migraine. I was so desperate to relieve the pain, I took two Excedrin Migraine tablets and flipped open the yellow pages to find a hairdresser. I was born with a full head of hair (when Jeff saw my baby pictures, he swore I was wearing a wig!) and I haven't gotten my hair cut in months. When I've got a headache I feel every ounce of hair on my head and it drives me crazy. I'm used to getting my hair done every 8 weeks at least but have really let myself go since I've been married. For one thing my husband has reigned in our budget like mad! That's when I realized, since we're trying to save money anyway, I might as well cut my hair myself. So I did. I took Jeff's shears out of the box and went to town. I lopped off 3 inches in length and thinned my hair as much as I could underneath. It was kind of fun and such a relief to get rid of so much weight! Thankfully my hair has lots of volume--the lighter it is, the higher it gets--so mistakes are easily concealed by the bigness of my hair. Anyway, that's my story for the day. You've gotta save $$$ where you can! Speaking of which, here's a picture of a gas station at sunset in Champaign...my relatives in Hawaii always ask what gas prices are here: $3.76 on average. It's harder and harder to raise kids when everything is so expensive!

S-U-R-R-E-N-D-E-R

On Sunday my father-in-law, Randy Hopkins, brought down the house and brought tears to me eyes as he preached a sermon entitled "SURRENDER: Okay, I Give Up!"--a message delivered straight from his heart to the congregation of Trinity Mennonite Church. I'll just summarize some of his points below although I wish I could streamline the sermon in a podcast form for you to hear. He really should preach every Sunday. Sorry, Dad, if I butcher some of your words to rehash your points! I did my best to take notes...


Salvation is the start of surrendering. (John 12:23-26).
Unpack struggles in your life that lead to stress. (We need to get deeper to the root of our problems and resist being band-aid Christians).
Release unrealistic expectations. (He never heard the words, "I love you" from his father even though he desperately wanted to but he had to let go of that expectation from ever happening, forgive, and move on).
Relinquish control of your life. (Dad spoke of IMPACT moments in his life, one of which recently occurred during a family member's funeral. Mom's niece in Michigan suffered the death of her baby and while Dad's mind was preoccupied with the practical hindrances of traveling there to attend the funeral (gas $$$, time, etc.), Mom wanted to go. Upon arrival, they realized the baby's father was not even present, but Mom's niece approached her and said, "Of all people, I knew you'd be here." At that moment Dad realized her niece saw Jesus in Mom and any thoughts of practical hindrances washed away.
Enlist scriptures to your mind. (The enemy isn't stupid and he'll put defeatist repetitions in your mind if it's not wall-papered with scripture. Boy do I know how true that is!)
Never trust in your own gifting.
Dare to believe God will take care of you.
Endure the hardships.
Responsibility for who we are. (Dad shared a story of meeting Franklin Graham and asking him to pray for him. Graham instructed him to surrender his requests to the Lord instead of having another person pray for his needs).

After the service, the kids and I talked about Dad's sermon. Laney said, "I'm surprised Grandpa would do that since he's kind of shy." I said, "Yeah, he's a lot like your Daddy." Laney responded, "No, Daddy is really talkative. He just talks, talks, and talks." I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? I think your Daddy is definitely shy and not talkative." Laney said, "Trust me. I've been living with my Daddy for 9 years. I know he's a talker."
Well, I guess everything is a matter of perspective. Case in point: Max piped up, "I would hate to live in the middle of nowhere." I about died of laughter (as we passed a cornfield to drive to Monical's Pizza). I said, "Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but we do live in the middle of nowhere!" Too funny! I've got to take these kids to a city!